Tom Warren: "While Intel is trying to keep the Windows tree healthy, Microsoft is hoping that the leaves don't start to drop off before its own family of Surface devices are fully ready. Redmond isn't 'priming the pump' here, it's planting seeds for the future. If Microsoft is successful then it could be the world's biggest Windows OEM in just a few years. The future is Surface." You just have to look at the difference in build quality and supplied software between OEM devices and Surface even though Surface is cheaper to realise that the age of Windows OEMs is coming to an end. The writing's on the wall, and the OEMs know it: there's no future for them in Windows.

I was referring to there being no alternative to going the Linux route, if MS is going to shun them.

Those other OSes you mentioned are mobile; nobody would use them as desktops, and there are still going to be people using desktops and laptops for quite some time, as mobile interfaces are gimped for real work.

That being said, things like Photoshop mean they may just have to bend over for MS, as the only OS they can install which supports that sort of thing is windows.

All those OS's I named are made to run on a range of devices. By NO means are they mobile only. Tizen and BB target for example cars too, JollaMobile's sailfish and Ubuntu home-entertainment like TV's. All of them target small (phone), medium (phablet) and large screen (10" tablets, laptops).

Todays large screen tablets are like laptops/desktops. Screen-resolution and external input-devices. Ironical Surface Tablets demonstrate where we are heading too. Desktop, Laptop, Tablet. The border is blur.

The only limiting factor on that are our large hands and bad eyes. Virtual keyboards with force feedback and in-eye projection like google glasses. May they come to the mass-market soon.